Note to package maintainers: unowned directories
Michael Schwendt
mschwendt at gmail.com
Sat Sep 6 11:30:24 UTC 2008
Some package maintainers have asked in private about "unowned directories",
so here is a revised cut'n'paste job of the various replies.
[...]
The background:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/ReviewGuidelines
MUST: A package must own all directories that it creates. If it does not
create a directory that it uses, then it should require a package which
does create that directory
[...]
The term "unowned directory" (or "orphaned directory") refers to a
packaging mistake, where
* a package includes files within a directory it creates,
but _not_ the directory itself, and
* none of the package's dependencies provide the directory either,
and
* the directory belongs to your package and does not belong to
any core package or base filesystem package that is considered
essential/fundamental.
This has several side-effects:
[1] A restrictive superuser umask during package installation
can create inaccessible directories.
Scenario: umask 077 ; yum update or rpm -ivh ...
Symptoms: Run-time problems. For example, unreadable subdirs
below %_libdir disable plugins. Unreadable subdirs below %_datadir
prevent application data, help texts, and graphics from being accessed.
Several sorts of users fix such permission problems with chmod instead
of taking the time to report it as a bug. It is common belief
that such bugs are so obvious they would be found by the package
maintainer or will be reported by other users.
[2] Upon uninstalling the package (or upgrading to another version),
the old directory is not removed from the file system, because
in the RPM database it does not belong into the package.
Especially if directories contain a version number, they clutter
up the file system with every update which doesn't remove old
directories.
[3] Unowned/orphaned directories cannot be checked with rpm -V
and not with rpm -qf either.
[4] Upstream source tarball configuration can fail, because it is
searched in old and empty versioned header directories, or because
it is tried to use multiple versioned directories instead of
just the latest valid one.
Examples of common packaging mistakes in spec %files lists:
[1]
%{_datadir}/foo/*
This includes everything _in_ "foo", but not "foo" itself.
"rpm -qlv pkgname" will show a missing drwxr-xr-x entry for "foo".
Correct would be
%{_datadir}/foo/
to include the directory _and_ the entire tree below it.
[2]
%{_docdir}/%{name}-%{version}/*
%{_includedir}/%{name}-%{version}/*.h
Same as in [1] but creates an additional unowned directory
everytime %version changes.
Correct would be:
%{_docdir}/%{name}-%{version}/
%dir %{_includedir}/%{name}-%{version}
%{_includedir}/%{name}-%{version}/*.h
[3]
%dir %{_libdir}/foo-2/fu
%dir %{_libdir}/foo-2/bar
%{_libdir}/foo-2/fu/*.so
%{_libdir}/foo-2/bar/config*
Here it is attempted at including the directories explicitly with
the %dir macro. However, while "bar" is included, "foo-2" is not.
Typically packagers run into that mistake if all installed files
are stored only in subdirs of the parent "foo-2" directory.
Correct would be:
%dir %{_libdir}/foo-2
%dir %{_libdir}/foo-2/fu
%dir %{_libdir}/foo-2/bar
%{_libdir}/foo-2/fu/*.so
%{_libdir}/foo-2/bar/config*
[4]
%{_datadir}/%{name}/db/raw/*.db
%{_datadir}/%{name}/pixmaps/*.png
Here only specific data files are included, and all (4!) directories
below %_datadir are unowned.
Correct would be:
%dir %{_datadir}/%{name}
%dir %{_datadir}/%{name}/db
%dir %{_datadir}/%{name}/db/raw
%dir %{_datadir}/%{name}/pixmaps
%{_datadir}/%{name}/db/raw/*.db
%{_datadir}/%{name}/pixmaps/*.png
It's easy to find unowned directories with "rpmls" from rpmdevtools or
"rpm -qlv". Just a bit of carefulness is needed to not include core
filesystem directories, such as %_bindir, %_libdir (and obvious others,
e.g. from the "filesystem" pkg) which don't belong into your package.
HTH
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